


Making a Fist

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1597526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tamara’s waiting when Jody gets back with Alex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making a Fist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liliaeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliaeth/gifts).



> Title from [this poem](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/making-fist) by Naomi Shihab Nye.
> 
> Liliaeth, I really enjoyed writing this for you; thank you for the awesome prompts!

Tamara’s waiting when Jody gets back with Alex. She’s exhausted and Alex is barely awake, but between them, Jody and Tamara get her into the house, where she collapses on the bed in the spare room. 

It’s not until they’re sitting at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around steaming mugs of tea—by now, Tamara knows what Jody likes at the end of a hard day, and Jody’s the same with her—that Tamara speaks.

‘So—what now? You’re going to adopt some monster kid?’

‘She’s not a monster, Tammy.’

Tamara snorts. ‘Bet the Winchesters wouldn’t agree.’

Jody lets out a tired sigh. ‘They let her walk. They’ve let others go, Tam. Others like Alex.’

‘Good for them.’ Tamara’s face is expressionless. She still insists on keeping her presence in Jody’s life a secret from the brothers, and while Jody still doesn’t know exactly what happened between them and Tamara, she’s respected Tamara’s request.

‘They mean well,’ Jody says. ‘And Alex is no longer their business.’

‘But she’s yours?’ When Jody gives her a glance, Tamara adds, ‘Your business?’

Jody takes a sip of her tea, letting its warmth seep through her. ‘I was kinda hoping she’d be our business, but if you aren’t open to that, it… it’s cool.’

Tamara doesn’t answer for a while. The room is quiet. Despite her tiredness, Jody is hyperaware of the tension in Tamara’s shoulders, the smell of gunpowder that always clings to her skin. It’s particularly strong tonight; Tamara must have been out on a hunt. Her hair’s still damp from a recent shower and she’s wearing her favorite t-shirt, a soft blue cotton one that was once Jody’s. The scent of her shampoo mingles with her hunter’s fragrance, and Jody inhales surreptitiously, letting the smell of home soak into her senses.

‘You all right?’ she asks finally, putting her hand on top of Tamara’s. Tamara doesn’t usually like casual touching, but Jody figures that this isn’t a casual conversation.

Tamara shrugs, gives Jody a tight little smile. ‘I’m always all right.’ It’s a lie, but Jody squeezes her fingers and hangs on.

‘Can I still stay?’ Tamara goes on. ‘If she—she sticks around?’

‘Of course you can. You know that.’

Tamara nods. It’s resolute, as though she’s making up her mind about something. 

‘Tammy—I mean it.’

Tamara nods again. ‘She can have my room.’ Tamara’s been staying in the spare room for over a year now.

‘You can move into my room. Or we can find a bigger house.’

‘Yeah?’ Tamara smiles then, a warmth in her eyes that hadn’t been there a minute ago, and something that’s been coiled tight in Jody’s chest begins to untwist a little. Tamara needs reassurance in a way that Jody rarely does. When they’d started hunting together, they’d been drawn to each other by the patterns of devastation in their lives, wandering together through an uncommon landscape that was rarely accessible to civilians. _All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way._ Hunters may not exactly form a close-knit family, but Jody often thinks that hunters get along with each other because each of them has a shared history of death and loss, because fighting back against the things that stole their lives from them is their raison d'être.

 _Our raison d'être_ , she silently corrects herself, looking down at their linked fingers on the table. She’s not sure when Tamara turned her hand so that their palms are pressed together.

 

\--

 

‘Jody?’

She turns around to see Alex—Ann, Alexis, whatever—standing there, scrubbing at her eyes. ‘Hey. Sleep well?’

Alex yawns, nods. ‘I don’t have a toothbrush.’

‘There’s a spare one in the bathroom cabinet. Top shelf.’ She nods toward her bedroom.

‘Thanks.’ 

Jody smiles, watching the girl go into her room. Tamara’s still asleep, the curtains drawn shut so the morning sunlight doesn’t fall on her face. She wonders what Alex will think, but finds that she doesn’t care. She suspects Alex won’t, either.

Maybe Tamara’s right, and the girl is none of their business. Maybe Tamara doesn’t share many of her beliefs, but so far, that hasn’t stopped them from discovering a shared rhythm to their lives. Hunting—and history—aren’t the only things they have in common anymore.

She’s pulled out of her thoughts by a text from Sam, asking if she and Alex are all right, if they need anything. She sends him a brief reply, remembering at the last moment to tack on a smiley at the end. The kid’s always been more concerned about others than himself, and she hadn’t liked seeing the darkness behind his eyes, more pronounced than ever. The unspoken tension between him and Dean. One of these days she’s going to call Sam and talk to him. Tamara would call it messing around in other people’s business, but it’s just one of the ways in which she and Tamara are different. Jody follows up on people; Tamara saves their lives and doesn’t look back.

She pours out two more mugs of coffee—a second one for herself, and one for Tamara—and sets out fruit and a box of Lucky Charms for Alex’s breakfast. (They’d been Owen’s favorite, and she’s never gotten out of the habit of picking up a couple of boxes whenever she’s at the supermarket.) She’d all but forgotten the little rituals of everyday life when she lived on her own, domesticity useless when it wasn’t for someone else’s benefit, but they come more easily to her now, those little tasks that make someone else’s life a little more comfortable.

She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching Tamara wake slowly, when Alex wanders into their room. ‘I don’t have anything to wear,’ she says. Her hair’s piled on her head, a damp towel wrapped around it, and she’s in one of Jody’s old robes.

Tamara sighs, pushes her hands back through her mussed hair. ‘Take something of mine. The closet in your room.’ She watches the girl leave, and then turns her head on the pillow to smile at Jody, reaching out a hand to claim her coffee.


End file.
